Scandals are piling up around Guy Verhofstadt, who regularly attacks Hungary. The Liberal MEP from Belgium has recently been exposed by our news agency. He made the news by having his luxury villa renovated on more than 250 thousand euros of public monies. Earlier he had also lobbied for oligarchs and received a hefty sums for years sitting on the board of a company which evaded taxes.

While MEP Guy Verhofstadt, member of the liberal Renew Europe group of the European Parliament, regularly attacks Hungary and criticises the government, it is he who is embroiled in scandals for which he should explain himself, Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet writes. The paper recalls V4NA’s information that the politician made headlines recently by having his luxury villa renovated on more than 250 thousand euros of public money. This, however, is only one of the many dubious cases linked to Verhofstadt, which are accompanied by his exclusionary and hateful statements.

Magyar Nemzet remarks that Verhofstadt’s name even appears in the infamous Paradise Papers. The database containing more than 13 million documents was leaked in 2017 and revealed that the liberal politician was collecting a salary of 60 thousand euros a year sitting on the board of a shipping company, which was trying to evade taxes through an offshore company. The case swelled into a sizeable scandal and among others, Peter Mertrens, the chairman of the Belgian Labour Party also criticised Verhofstadt, pointing out that he should have known about the satellite company registered in Bermuda.

Instead of assuming responsibility, Verhofstadt left it to his press officer, who came up with the strange explanation that Exmar Offshore was not an offshore company, the word is only in the company’s name because it deals with marine engineering.

A year later, Verhofstadt again attracted the attention of the international press for his various side sources of revenue, likely earning him several times the amount of his salary as an MEP. Based on the research of advocacy organisation Transparency International, the paper Le Soir reported that on top of his 13 thousand-euro monthly salary, the Belgian politician may have pocketed some 1.5 million euros in the previous parliamentary term.

Although MEPs are not forbidden to earn such side incomes, provided that they do not conceal it from the authorities, Verhofstadt amassed an exceptionally high amount of money this way according to Brusselstimes.com. Transparency International also emphasized that the case may arise suspicions of a conflict of interest, if an MEP accepts money from companies on the EU’s official lobby list,

Magyar Nemzet writes, adding that when the case came to light, Verhofstadt was the director of the Sofina and Theodorus III foundation of the Free University of Brussels, which deals with startup companies, among other things.

Meanwhile, it has been proven that Verhofstadt’s former party family, ALDE (of which the liberal politician was also the group leader), is also financed by multinational companies, including ones based outside the EU. Cecilia Wikstrom, who held several leading positions in the party group, was recalled from the top of the Swedish liberal EP-list after being involved in a tax fraud scandal.

Verhofstadt also lobbies for oligarchs. He has a particularly close relationship with Nicolas Boel, owner of the Sofina holding company, which has an interest in GdF Suez. Soon after the latter company wanted to acquire the waterworks of Thessaloniki, Greece, Mr Verhofstadt demanded a privatisation package from Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the European Parliament. At this time, Verhofstadt also sat on the board of the APG pension fund, and after his speech attacking PM Tsipras and Greece, three Greek ministers met with the leaders of APG within six months.

Although Mr Verhofstadt attacks right-wing countries, accusing them of rule of law violations, extreme nationalism, and discrimination against various sexual minorities, among other things, he turns a blind eye to these phenomena that are also widespread in his former EP party group. According to the paper, it is no coincidence that the Romanian Alianta Liberalilor si Democratilor, as a member of ALDE, omitted the word Europe from its name. The Romanian party fails to meet the values advocated by ALDE in many aspects, Thenewfederalist.eu points out.